


"...There was a little incident..."

by RogerStenning



Series: The Roic Files [2]
Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-02
Updated: 2013-01-02
Packaged: 2017-11-23 09:57:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,174
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/620849
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RogerStenning/pseuds/RogerStenning
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Don't come between Roic and a pint!"</p>
            </blockquote>





	"...There was a little incident..."

**"...There was a little incident..."**

  
A Vorkosigan FanFic  
By Roger Stenning  
  
Based on the characters, situations, and universe created, set, and owned by  
Lois McMaster Bujold. The contents of this story are for personal, non-commercial  
use only. Any use of Lois McMaster Bujold's copyrighted material or trademarks  
anywhere in this story should not be viewed as a challenge to those copyrights  
or trademarks. This disclaimer must remain as an integral part of this file.  
The material in this story may be used/abused by other FanFic authors, provided  
that credit is given where credit is due - "Turnabout is fair play"!  
  
Copyright 2010, Roger Stenning.  
  
***  
  
This FanFic was inspired by a line in the Novella  
“Winterfair Gifts” by Lois McMaster Bujold.  
  
***

Roic leaned back in his chair, and stretched. It had been a long shift, made even longer by the arrests he and his partner had made three hours earlier.  
  
Arresting the con artists – they'd been doing a variation on the “Hide The Lady” gag - had taken half a hour, processing them at the Central Guard Office had taken an hour, and the paperwork had taken another hour, luckily fully half the time it used to take, thanks to the vocal transcription package, but what should have been an eight hour turn of duty, had been misshapen into close to eleven hours, and by the time all the required post-arrest miscellanea had been performed, Rioc was, not to put too fine a point on it, completely knackered – paperwork had a way of doing that to him. And he wasn't even home yet: he was late for his Da's birthday bash, being held in a bar just round the corner from the Main Square, in the 'Mallet & Chisel', the last remaining rather more down-to-earth bar of the area than the other, frankly more pretentious, high-class gin joints that the Vor and their hangers-on tended to frequent.  
  
The one good thing about living and working in Hassadar, the Vorkosigans' capital, was that the Admiral at least had a healthy respect for the working stiffs. Fully ten times over the last few decades, some high muck-a-muck this or that had tried to get the 'Mallet & Chisel' closed down in favour of a “more fitting drinking establishment” (read another over-priced and poseuristic Gin Joint), and each time, the veto had come down to variations of _No_.  
  
Roic grinned, remembering the news coverage of that last one. The Count had actually said “Leave the damn place be. You try closing it down, and the bloody riot that _I'll_ cause will be nothing on the thrice-be-damned riot _they_ well may cause, so belt the hell up on the subject! Next case!” to the City Advisory Committee last year, and what a silence on the floor that had caused – in prime time vid coverage too. Not for nothing did the city labourers have a healthy liking for the Admiral: the 'Mallet  & Chisel' was the one remaining Labourer's bar in the centre of the city, and with all the construction work going on, they certainly needed a bar of their own to rest and wind down from the days' work.  
  
Roic leaned on his desk, hauled himself out of his chair, and signed in his stunner and spare charge packs, shock baton, manual hand cuffs and tangle field pack to the Arsenal Officer through the window in his 'Gun Cage' as they called the Armoury, and signed off-shift, heading out via the locker room for a quick shower and change of uniform for civvies. Off came the brown Uniform Cargo Trousers with silver-grey piping and half-boots (fibre-steel toe caps, of course), the woven synthetic fibre utility belt with all its' myriad pouches and holsters, the brown so-called 'Bomber Jacket' and thick Cold Weather Pull-Over Roll-Neck Shirt, and his under-shirt anti-stab vest, and on went his casual cargo trousers, thick cotton shirt and stylised padded 'donkey jacket', made of that course almost donkey-hide-like material that was so warm in the winter months. On his feet he stuck a pair of very comfortable tan-coloured ankle-high working boots. Topped off with a brown woven watch cap, he looked very much like the labourers in the rest of his family.  
  
Waving a cheery “G'night, all!”, he headed off across the main square, stopping briefly at the Shashlyk kiosk just opposite the sub-office – a favourite haunt of off-duty sub-offices' Street Guardsmen, who wanted a quick bite of something fairly nourishing before heading into work, or off home after work. The skewers of freshly prepared meats - the Greekies called them kebabs - smelt wonderful, and he chose his usual spiced beef and sour cream shashlyk; the vendor, a balding, jovial and very rotund fellow of medium height, accepted the cred-stick Roic offered, processed it with a swipe through his portable terminal, and handed it back, along with the shashlyk, now enclosed in a pitta-style unleaven bun, with a loud “Enjoy!”.  
  
It was a typically chilly evening, with dusk fast approaching, around knocking off time for most of the office workers in the city, and the square itself, comprised of four grassy areas quartered off with four diagonally-crossing paved paths, was heavy with foot traffic. Surrounding the square on three sides were wide dual-carriageway roads, as usual clogged with the beginnings of the rush hour – why, thought Roic irreverently, was it called a rush hour, when it took two full hours hours for the traffic to die down again?!  
  
On the fourth, southern side, of the square, was Parade Road, the gravel covered road used exclusively for 'Special Traffic', in other words, the Count's, ImpSec's, Imperial Services, and the Emergency Services, vehicles only. It was cordoned off at all but four times of the year: Emperors' Birthday Celebrations, Winterfair, The Count's Birthday Celebrations, and Liberation Day, when parades of civil and military ground trucks, or “floats”, paraded past the Count, His Voice, and/or his appointed Deputy (depending on the Count's required duties), who would appear, waving, on the Great Balcony overlooking the Square and the Parade Road.  
  
The decorations from Winterfair still hung on the lamp stands in the Plaza, fully four weeks post-Winterfair, having yet to be taken down by the Municipal Department of Works. One of those things, Roic guessed, although, as usual, three months before-hand, the shops had stuck their decorations up, and advertised Winterfair gifts – almost in the height of the Barrayaran summer! Even now, while it was burningly cold at night in the midst of the Winter months, the shops were advertising summer wear for the next season. Roic grinned to himself. It didn't hurt to be mad to work in the city, but it sure by damn helped!  
  
He'd finished off his Shashlyk by the time he was halfway across the square, and was looking forward to a warm night of drinking, laughter, and unabashed ageist jokes at his old mans' expense, when the first of the needles shrieked past his right ear and peppered the fashionably dressed young woman behind him. She fell to the ground without even knowing what had killed her. Roic had hit the ground rolling, as his trained reflexes took over thanks to the training at the Guard Academy, finding a handy statue – General Count Piotre Vorkosigan The Great, on horseback - to hunker down behind and figure out _Just what t'hell just happened?!_ He looked about. Fifteen more people had been hit in the first few volleys, two not moving, with rapidly expanding pools of blood surrounding them. _What t'hell was going on?!_  
  
It was mass confusion everywhere, now. People were fleeing in all directions, the screaming from the masses being drowned out by the terrified and pleading cries of the wounded, adding to the cacophony of car horns blaring their frustration at the rush hour, while, in short bursts, automatic needle fire rained down across the square. Pandemonium had nothing on this. Roic took a deep breath. _Sniper_. He swore a very vulgar curse. Now what? No stunner, no nothing, in fact. He was off duty. If he ran, he'd likely be shot in the back, and that didn't appeal one tiny bit. Besides, he had some drinking to do, and this madman was eating into that time. _God's Teeth_ , this was really beginning to grate. Fine. No withdrawal. Advance and arrest. If it's going to happen, Roic reasoned, _I'd rather see it coming and be shot in the front, than be gutted from behind. Besides, the chances are it'll be even odds running away, as towards, so better to run towards._  
  
Three more bursts of needles screeched past the statue to skewer the dead and wounded, soliciting yet more screams. Sirens has now began their mournful wail, faintly in the distance. That'd be Central's Special Incident Team. _Late, as usual_ , Roic muttered to himself. Gathering himself, he paused. Hold up. _Where t'hell do I charge?_ Roic glanced about, and risked a fast look around the statue. Equally as fast, and abbreviated burst missed his head by fractions. _There_. Second level, the District Revenue Service offices, Main Square West.  
  
As he sighted the sniper's location, he realised. _Abbreviated burst. He's gotta be reloading. Now or never_. In the same instant, and without conscious thought, he was up and running towards the door below the window in a straight line, full tilt, covering the distance in sprinted ground-eating athletic strides. All he could hear in his ears was the pounding of his heart, the stomping of his feet on the grass of the square and the asphalt of the road as he crossed the road without even looking, his panting, and then a humongous _THUD_ and forced _“OOF!”_ as he span 180 degrees and crashed into the wall with his back, just as the sniper opened fire again, over his head, into the square.  
  
Roic was panting now. _Upstairs! GO!_  
  
He barged the door in front of him, into the lobby of the offices. Four people down, all civilians. DRS didn't have guards: in the olden days, that's what the Count's Retainer was for, but in these more civilised times, with that retainer reduced to being a Count's Personal Guard, protection of District Offices was a purely civil function, and the two uniforms at the main entrance had been glorified doormen, nothing more. The other two had been receptionists. Roic followed the bloody footsteps leading inside, and up the stairs. He could hear the shrieks of needle fire continuing. _God, how many more?_  
  
Following the bloody footsteps lead him to a carpeted corridor, where the foot prints petered out; he followed the sound of the needle-fire instead, and all the way, saw traces where the gunman had opened fire inside the office, with needle holes everywhere. Someone must have hit the panic button, as there were no other bodies or blood. _Thank God for small mercies_. He found the gunman, just starting to open fire again, muttering loudly something that sounded like “ASSESS THIS YOU-” which was then drowned out by the rifle firing.  
  
Roic didn't wait another moment, grabbing up a heavy book, he yelled “HEY!” and threw it, full pitch, at the gunman, who span in surprise, the muzzle coming around too. _SHIT!_ Roic fell flat, the extended burst shrieking over him by millimetres as the book hit the gunman full in the face. The gun rattled to the floor, and the gunman staggered against the window frame.  
  
Roic leapt up again, and charged the man. The impact damn near shattered the window frame, but it held, just barely. And now, the gunman vented his rage on Roic. Screaming gutturally and inarticulately at Roic, he rained down a mass of punches and kicks at Roic who ignored them all, to grab the man by the throat with both hands, and with a mighty yell, hauled hard. Over went the gunman, screaming all the way, clearing the desk and hitting the door frame halfway up, folding through it and landing in the corridor on his back.  
  
Roic was right behind him, and landed on him with both knees astride, grabbing his arms and batting them away wide, he then open-palm punched the man full strength in his centre chest, stunning him briefly enough to spin him around, face down, and pin his arms behind him, just as the Special Incident Team came pounding up the corridor in all their heavy armour, bearing heavy stunners, coming to a screaming halt as Roic looked up, showed his ID wallet, and commented “You lot took your bloody time. He's all yours. I'm off for a sodding drink.”  
  
Later, at the ceremony that awarded him the _Count's Medal For Extreme Valour, First Class_ , he'd still be wondering just what the hell had been going through his head as he bounded towards the sniper. All he could come up with was that he'd been late for a drink with his old man.  
  
All his old man could say, after the stunned silence in the pub that night, was that the moral of the tale was "Don't come between Roic and a pint!"

_FIN_


End file.
